how dumb the U.S. health care system is.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There are some basics we must cover before shooting for the stars. Like talking about food in the free conversation room, for example.
I have a free period and decide I’ll pop in on Bob, a gigantically tall teacher from Wales who is in what we call the free-con room with about ten students.
I open the door and hear him saying, “Yeah, I really don’t like the taste; it just doesn’t appeal to me.”
I put on a smile as I look around at the students, all of whom have a look of utter horror on their faces.
Bob turns to me. “Tim, do you like manko?”
“Manko…manko…,” I think aloud. “Oh, manko! Isn’t that that bean paste stuff?”
He nods, looking around and wondering what the students find so horrifying about someone not liking manko.
“Yeah, I don’t like that either. The first time I ate manko I was expecting it to taste like chocolate, and it just didn’t at all.” I screw my face up into a look of distaste. “I was so disappointed. Because, really, what’s more delicious than a creamy, chocolate-filled doughnut?”
The students are still in shock about something, and a few of the ladies cover their mouths and giggle, red-faced. Things are clearly getting a little uncomfortable, so I do what I usually do when this happens. I walk out of the room and let the other person deal with it.
A few minutes later the bell rings and Bob comes into the teachers’ room looking redder than any Welshman I’ve ever seen.
“Oh my God, oh my God!!” he bellows in his resonant baritone. “I’ve just made an awful, terrible, horrible mistake! I can never go back into that room again! I want to die and be buried immediately. Immediately! Shit! Fuck!”
Between his exclamations of “Oooooooooh, I wish I were invisible” and “Aaaaaaaaah, I want to go back to Wales,” we get his story.
In class, they’d been discussing Japanese food, and the students had asked Bob what food he really doesn’t like. Bob answered that he really doesn’t care for bean paste, a perfectly reasonable answer. It’s the answer I would have given and, in fact, had given when I’d stuck my head in. Unfortunately, he’d used the wrong word for bean paste. Instead of “anko,” which means bean paste, he’d said “manko.” Manko means pussy. He’d just told the class he really didn’t like eating pussy.
And I had too.
All the teachers squeal and cover their mouths.
Right on cue, in walks Jill with a smirk on her face, oblivious to the atmosphere of confusion and despair engulfing us all and still intent on bringing the American empire down, colloquialism by colloquialism.
“You know my least favorite American word?” she squeaks. We are dying to know, absolutely can’t wait for her to tell us.
“ Mom . Why don’t you just say mum ?”
I wrack my brain trying to think of a good reason why we Americans refer to our mothers in such a venomous and disrespectful way. But I’m too appalled right now to take this bait.
I flop into a chair and look sadly at my Japanese book, wondering if there’s a handy way to politely apologize not only for saying the word “pussy” at least four times in a ten-second period, but also for expressing that I don’t really like eating it.
I decide maybe I should go down to Burger King and get some fries. I’ve got a really horrible taste in my mouth.
# of kanji characters studied: 40
# of kanji characters forgotten: 34
# of sexually inappropriate things said to Tokyo’s cashiers when just trying to be nice:?
In which a small prayer is offered to the God of Large Things.
I wake up in my neighbor Julia’s apartment with the taste of moldy vodka and tonkotsu ramen on my breath. I’m not usually much of a drinker, but I make special exceptions when everyone else is doing it. Last night everyone else was doing it.
I rise up and see Ruth, Julia’s roommate, passed out on the floor
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